ANTARCTICA scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding the event that they believe wiped out the dinosaurs more than 66 million years ago, a new study claims.

The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) event saw the sudden mass extinction of some three-quarters of the plants and animals on earth approximately 66 million years ago.This is believed to have been caused by the impact of a massive asteroid measuring up to 10 miles in width which struck the Gulf of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. A 112-mile-wide crater can be seen today and scientists think the strike devastated the global environment, mainly through triggering a cosmic winter which halted photosynthesis in plants and left little food for animals.

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However, researchers near the South Pole have now made a breakthrough in the icy continent of Antarctica, which explains how marine life returned after the event.

A team led by the British Antarctic Survey studied just under 3000 marine fossils collected from below the frozen desert.

They reveal how it took one million years for the marine ecosystem to return to pre-extinction levels.

Author Dr Rowan Whittle, a palaeontologist at British Antarctic Survey, said on June 19: “This study gives us further evidence of how rapid environmental change can affect the evolution of life.

Scientists made a find that helps explain the extinction of dinosaurs (Image: GETTY)

66 million years ago it is believed an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs (Image: GETTY)

Our discovery shows the effects of the K-Pg extinction were truly global

Dr James Witts

“Our results show a clear link in the timing of animal recovery and the recovery of Earth systems.”

Dr James Witts, who was part of the University of New Mexico team that helped, explained how the study reveals the sheer magnitude of the effects following the asteroid devastation.

He said: “Our discovery shows the effects of the K-Pg extinction were truly global.

“Even Antarctic ecosystems, where animals were adapted to environmental changes at high latitudes like seasonal changes in light and food supply, were affected for hundreds of thousands of years after the extinction event.”

Antarctica is of great interest to researchers due to its unspoilt landscape and ecosystem.

He detailed during his book: “An Inconvenient Truth” how scientists dig deep below the surface and taking what are known as ice core samples.

However, Mr Gore, who was Bill Clinton’s running mate for their successful presidential campaign in 1992 and 1996, detailed one surprising find.

He wrote in 2006: “Yet another surprise for me was when scientists showed me that near the South Pole, the presence of air pollution in the ice cores visibly declined not long after the passage of the US Clean Air Act in 1970.

Scientists studied more than 3,000 fossils (Image: BAS)

Ice cap samples also tell us a lot about Antarctica's past (Image: GETTY)

“Looking back through the annual layers of ice, you can actually see the before and after with your own eyes.

“One thing both Antarctica and the Arctic have in common is the remoteness from civilisation.

“Yet both of these formally prestige locations are now marked by industrial pollution.”